Is it
unspiritual to be depressed?
The first response to this question is to point out that there
are many godly people who have passed through times of immense sorrow. The great Baptist preacher, Charles Spurgeon,
struggled with depression throughout his life.
One thing that appears to have ignited this was a specific tragedy.
Spurgeon was preaching to a huge congregation—of over twelve
thousand people, at the Exeter Hall in London—when some prankster yelled,
“Fire!” In the chaos that ensued seven
people were killed, and Spurgeon was inconsolable. Other factors contributed to his depressions,
including his struggles with gout and his concern for those he pastored. Spurgeon seems to have been good at caring
for others but not so good at letting others care for him!
He exclaimed that there are dungeons beneath the Castle of
Despair, and that he had often been in them.
‘I could weep by the hour like a child, and yet I knew not what I wept
for,’ he recounted on one occasion.
In the book of Psalms, we often hear the psalmists crying out
to God in despair. Over fifty of the
psalms can be categorised as psalms of individual lament—where the psalmist
cries out in pain before God. These
psalms are given to us by God, in part, to help us express our pain. They were also words that Jesus would have
had on his lips expression his feelings (for example Psalm 22:1).
Most significantly we must remember that Jesus was a man of
sorrows familiar with grief (Isaiah 53:3).
Spurgeon wrote, ‘No sin is necessarily connected with sorrow of the
heart, for Jesus Christ our Lord once said, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful,
even to death.” There was no sin in Him,
and consequently none in his depression.’
However, John Piper warns us that depression does present us
with particular temptations. Most
obviously, depression tempts us towards self-pity. Also, there is a temptation to find comfort
in wrong ways: like over-eating, overwork and substance abuse.
But what
about the fact that the fruit of the Spirit includes joy?
But if the fruit of the Spirit includes joy, then am I less
spiritual when I am depressed?
I put this question to a friend of mine, who is a lecturer in
a leading evangelical theological college.
He replied, ‘I guess joy is not simply an emotion. And so someone with depression can still
(though it would be harder) rejoice, [that is] have confidence in the
Lord.’ He then says that Psalm 31:7-9
might be worth looking at.
Psalm 31:7-9 reads, ‘I will be glad and rejoice in your love,
for you saw my affliction and knew the anguish of my soul … Be merciful to me Lord, for I am in distress;
my eyes grow week with sorrow, my soul and body with grief.’ Do you see that in these verses rejoicing and
the sorrow seem to live side-by-side? It
seems that we have here an example of being sorrowful, yet always rejoicing (2
Cor. 6:10). Ed Welch writes, ‘Joy is not
the opposite of depression. It is deeper
than depression. Therefore, you can
experience both.’ However, I don’t want
to be naïve. In Psalm 88 there is no
sign of the light coming. It is the
darkest of all the psalms and ends with the haunting words, ‘darkness is my
closest friend.’ That has been the
experience of some godly people.
Joan Singleton lectures in pastoral care in the Irish Bible
Institute. At one stage, when she was
depressed, she wondered if her depression inhibited her witness as a
Christian. Then she realised the
powerful testimony in the fact that she was still hanging on to God and
believing his truth, even though her life was filled with pain.
What
about anxiety, isn’t it wrong to worry?
I am not disputing that worry can be a real sin, but I think
that anxiety can have many roots, some of which are not sinful.
In this I see a parallel between anxiety and doubt. On certain occasions Jesus rebuked the
disciples for their doubt, because it revealed a stubborn refusal to accept the
truth (e.g. John 20:27). Yet in the
letter of Jude we read that we are to ‘be merciful to those who doubt’ (Jude
22). Those to whom Jude was referring
doubted, not because they stubbornly refused to believe, but because
false-teachers had infiltrated the church and upset their faith. So there is doubt that deserves a rebuke and
doubt that needs gentle pastoral support.
Similarly, there is anxiety that deserves a rebuke and anxiety that
needs gentle pastoral support.
Sinful anxiety is rooted in a failure to trust God, or in the
fact that we have made peripheral things too important in our lives. David Powlison observes that, ‘if what you
most value can be taken away or destroyed, then you have set yourself up for
anxiety.’ However, not all anxiety is
condemned in Scripture. For example, the
apostle Paul experienced the anxiety related to caring for the health of
Christian churches (2 Corinthians 11:28).
As we have seen in many of the psalms, God gives us words to put on our
lips to express our anxiety.
When our anxiety has roots in a distorted view of God, we need
to be gently instructed in the truth of his gentleness and grace. We are told to cast our anxieties on the
Lord, because he cares for us (1 Peter 5:7), but some people need help in
coming to understand that he really does care for them. The person with an anxiety disorder may not
even be fully aware as to why they are so anxious. Their worries may have more to do with do
with imbalances in brain chemistry than the actual issues they are focusing
on. It would simply be too harsh to
simply tell them just to stop worrying.
Is it
okay to take anti-depressants?
John Piper was asked the following question from a listener on
his podcast: ‘What do you think of
Christians taking anti-depressants—I have been on them and have been accused on
not relying on God?’
In his answer, Piper takes a drink from a bottle of water and
then asks, ‘was that sip a failure to rely on God?’ After all, God could simply keep his throat
miraculously moist! He could have prayed
for his throat to stop being dry. But he
took a physical solution for the problem (the water). Piper’s point is that God has given certain
means to provide for our physical well-being, and these are to be taken with
thanksgiving.
iper then explains that he has reached the conclusion that
there are profoundly physical dimensions to many mental conditions. Since that is the case, physical means can be
us to help people out of their depression—just as medications are gratefully
received in the treatment of many other illnesses. Indeed, in our depression or anxiety it may
seem that we cannot focus our minds and hearts on the gracious promises of God
and that these medications bring us to a place where the truth can better
impact our hearts.
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